MLB "wants more" than the average $711M per year it currently collects in television rights fees from ESPN, Fox and Turner, and in "coming negotiations for deals that start after the 2013 season, it should get it," according to Richard Sandomir of the N.Y. TIMES. Sources said that MLB has been "talking with the networks about changing the configurations of the current deal." The strategy "could make the three incumbents worried that some of what they have ... could be offered elsewhere." Sources said that one change MLB has proposed "is an all-encompassing deal to one media giant for a game of the week, the All-Star Game and the postseason." That is "unlikely to happen because leagues prefer to satisfy multiple partners, if only to avoid angering more than one losing bidder." There may also be "two TV partners carrying baseball nationally, not three." Sandomir notes MLB can "gaze upon NBC and see a company that needs it." NBC is the fourth-ranked network, and NBC Sports Network "cannot survive on only hockey, cycling, boxing, Mountain West Conference football, horse racing, soccer and elk hunting." NBCSN would like to "use baseball to help push its number of subscribers beyond the nearly 80 million it has, and raise subscriber fees, which would bring in millions of dollars in new revenue." NBC Sports Group Chair Mark Lazarus "would love to use the World Series to promote new programming and win a few nights of prime time." But Comcast "could determine that baseball is too expensive or that its ratings and older demographic do not thrill them." ESPN, which "acquires or keeps nearly all it wants, would love to blunt Comcast/NBC’s bid to grab a share of baseball and blunt NBCSN as a competitor." The net also would "love to keep Fox ... from growing stronger with its own version of an ESPN rival." Turner wants to "stick with what it has on TBS: Sunday afternoon games, all the division series games and one league championship series" (N.Y. TIMES, 7/3).
